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Economy Vinegar
Apple Cores and Parings Molasses Save the sound cores and parings of apples, place in jar, cover with cold water and stand in a warm place; add one-half pint of molasses to every two gallons. Cover jar with gauze; add more parings and cores occasionally. This will make good vinegar.
This is scrap vinegar, still made the same way, and the method survives largely unchanged. A few points matter for getting acetic acid rather than mould.
- The hinge: keep the solids submergedApple peel that floats above the waterline grows fuzzy mould rather than vinegar. Weight the scraps down with a small plate or a water-filled bag, and skim anything that surfaces.
- ProportionsHalf a pint of molasses to two gallons of water is about one cup to eight quarts, which is a thin sugar solution. Modern scrap-vinegar practice uses closer to a tablespoon of sugar per cup of water; the original relies on the sugar left in the parings to make up the difference, so use genuinely sweet, sound fruit.
- MolassesPeriod molasses meant cane syrup, and unsulphured molasses is the closest match. Blackstrap will work but carries a strong mineral flavour into the finished vinegar. Plain white sugar gives a cleaner result if the apple flavour is the point.
- "A warm place"Acetic bacteria work best in warmth, roughly 70-85F. A kitchen counter away from direct sun is right; a cold pantry will stall the ferment and invite spoilage organisms instead.
- The gauze coverNot decorative. The ferment needs air to convert alcohol to acetic acid, and the cloth keeps out fruit flies, which are drawn to the jar once it starts to smell of cider.
- TimingThe original gives none. Expect a week or two of cidery bubbling, then a further three to six weeks of souring. A pale gelatinous film — the mother — is a good sign; blue, black or green fuzz means discard the batch.
- Strength is unknownHomemade vinegar of this kind typically lands somewhere between two and four percent acetic acid, well below the five percent required for safe pickling and canning. Use it for salads, deglazing and cleaning, and use commercial vinegar of stated strength for anything preserved.
- FinishingStrain out the solids through cloth once it tastes sharp, bottle, and keep somewhere cool. It will continue to acidify slowly; a fresh batch can be started by carrying the mother over.
Vinegar from apple waste belongs to the household economy that ran on not throwing anything out: a kitchen that put up cucumbers, beets and cabbage every autumn went through vinegar by the gallon, and buying it was a real expense. Cores and parings accumulated by the bowlful wherever pies, sauce and apple butter were being made, and the two fermentations involved -- yeast converting sugar to alcohol, then Acetobacter converting alcohol to acetic acid -- happen on their own from organisms already on the fruit skins, so the cook's only work is waiting. The unmeasured, untimed quality of the instructions is characteristic: the writer expected the reader to judge by smell and taste, and few home kitchens of the era had any means of measuring acidity.